An international sports centre planned to regenerate Southall has finally been given the crucial funds needed to start building.

Ealing Tertiary College has been told a £762,000 grant from the Further Education Funding Council has been approved, meaning that builders can set up at its Southall site in Beaconsfield Road in the next couple of months.

Building of the two-storey, £3m sports complex is expected to begin in October, after the demolition of two 1930s college classrooms on the Abbotts Road side of the college, and is scheduled to last 52 weeks for an opening in Autumn next year.

The college had been waiting for the money from the FEFC since September last year to top up a £2.3million National Lottery grant for the centre, which will house a fitness suite, a sports hall and a table tennis club expected to attract international tournaments.

Progress ,, the top table tennis club in the country ,, have planned to move to the first floor of the centre, making Southall an international venue for the sport.

Project manager David Rooney said the centre, combined with the planned opening of a 172-bed international hotel at the Phoenix House in The Green, Southall in the middle of next year, which was reported in The Times last week, will be a major boost to the Southall economy.

'We're delighted, because it's taken four years of very hard work to get the project underway.

'It's been a long haul, and there have been so many obstacles, but it's been worth it, not only for the college, but also for Southall,' he said.

A community health centre is also planned for the ground floor and negotiations with GPs willing to refer patients there are expected to take place over the next 12 months.